The Rose Legacy (17 page)

Quillan waited, his breath no more than the air around him, his body still as darkness, unstirred by so much as a twitch. They passed within four feet, but he was nothing but shadow, the night, though starred, boasting no moon. He smelled the feral sweat of the predator upon them as they passed, also stealthy, but on the move.

As they crouched against the corner of the saddlery, he slipped to the side of the Boise Billiard Hall. In darkness he waited for them to move. Four men burst through the swinging doors of the Emporium, arms locked, singing. Quillan knew they would not move yet. They weren’t all ready.

Through the din, a sound met his ears. Hooves. Unusual this night. One of them? He turned and saw the mule approaching the livery from the gulch side. Even with no moon, he knew her form. What was Carina DiGratia doing out past dark—and alone? An errand for Mr. Beck?

His flesh twitched beneath his left eye. He waited while she entered the livery and came out again on foot. She should cut through the field and make directly for Mae’s. But she didn’t. She started down Central toward Drake. Didn’t she notice the empty street? He felt his shoulders tense. Had she no better sense—but then, she didn’t know the roughs were out to make their presence known.

Or did she? With a new city marshal “elected” that morning, there would be havoc tonight. They had scared off O’Neal and would show this one just how impotent the position was. Quillan frowned. And there was Miss DiGratia walking into the center of it.

Midstride, she changed direction and crossed the street, coming toward him. He pressed into the wall, not intending to be seen. He wanted faces and names, one in particular, and to get that he had to stay hidden. But she advanced, stepping quickly and lightly to the sidewalk, oblivious to her danger.

Doors swung and light spilled into the street carrying with it a man, in his cups, but thick-set and steady. He neither sang nor swayed but pressed his derby to his head and stepped off the walk heading toward the tents. A newcomer then, as Quillan didn’t recognize him as a neighbor. His neighbors wouldn’t be fool enough to walk out alone tonight.

Miss DiGratia’s head came up, and she spied the man. She paused only a moment, but it was all Quillan needed. He sprang from the shadow, cupped her mouth with one hand, and pulled her tightly against him to the wall, whispering hoarsely, “You don’t want to go on just now.”

As she struggled, the men left their haunt and circled the derby in the street. The front man, a large, burly mass in canvas pants and sack-shaped coat, spread his legs and extended his palm. “Hand it over, Mick.”

“And would ye like to ever git out of me way, befir I bloody yer nose.”

Carina DiGratia thrashed, and Quillan realized he had blocked the breath from her nostrils. He adjusted his grip, but she fought him still. He tightened the arm across her ribs. Couldn’t she see what was happening? “Keep still,” he rasped.

The Irishman reached for his gun, but the second man clamped his wrist and wrenched it from him. The third leveled a kick to the Irishman’s ribs. “The money, Mick.”

Miss DiGratia shook her head side to side. Quillan felt her teeth on the pulp of his finger and yanked it free just before they drew blood. He spun and pressed her to the wall, trapping her with his body, one hand gripping her throat to cut off a cry.

She was small and ineffective in her struggle. Her face, turned sideways, was pressed out of shape, lips and cheek pushed askew against the wall. Her hand slipped down to her skirt, and, guessing her intent, he gripped the wrist without mercy. She must not reach the gun. He cursed himself for providing it. If she shot even once it would draw the roughs’ gunfire.

Whoomp
. A blow to the Irishman’s belly and another to the jaw. Arms thrashing, the man resisted. But he was one to three. He was kicked to the street and two of his assailants sprawled on top, ripping the coat from his arms and digging fingers into any pocket they could find.

Quillan’s struggle was not finished. Miss DiGratia tugged against his hold, gasping for breath through his fingers on her throat. “Don’t move,” he hissed in her ear. “Do you want them to hear you?”

She whimpered, and he loosened the clamp on her wrist. Two more men came from the shadows, watched for a moment the commotion in the street, then went inside the Gilded Slipper. A moment later they came out, dragging a man between them.

Staring over his shoulder, Quillan tried to make out the faces. He was too far, having lost the chance to draw nearer with Miss DiGratia’s untimely appearance. Now she fought him like a wild thing, landing a backward kick to his shin. He grit his teeth at the pain.

From the far side of Madison Avenue a cluster of men joined the pair holding the dragged man to the street. One of these stood forward and, with a foot, raised the man’s chin from the dirt. Quillan could not hear what was said.

Carina DiGratia bit his forearm, and he wrenched it back. She spun and clawed him with both hands while he scrabbled to keep his hold. Fury gave him strength, and he swung her to his shoulder and loped around the corner even as her invectives turned the heads of the men in the street.

They would come now, he knew. They risked too much not to. All of Crystal had known what this night would bring. Only those who defied the rough element were about, and they would be taught their mistake. With her fists banging his back, her legs kicking air, he ran. Ducking into the shed behind Fisher’s General Mercantile, Quillan dropped her to the ground and held her there.

“You’re either crazy or stupid.” He spoke through clenched teeth, so angry he shook her. “You might have killed us both.”

Her face was stark in the darkness, the whites of her eyes full rims around the darks. He felt her trembling. She was terrified. Of him. He jammed splayed fingers into his hair, loose now from the leather string he had tied it with.

Steps outside the door. He clutched her to his chest, resting a finger to her lips. “Not a sound.” Her heart pulsed in her throat, but she made no noise louder than her rasping breath, which caught short when the door opened and a man peered in.

The darkness and clutter were all their defense. But they were enough. He closed the door and passed on. Quillan felt her go slack in his arms, and a flickering tenderness stirred inside. She had no reason to trust him, and he’d been brutal in his need to subdue her.

He let go his hold, and she sprang away, freezing when yet another hand found the door. It swung open and she gasped. Quillan tensed to spring.

“Carina?”

She jumped to her feet. “Mr. Beck.” Her voice was thin with fear.

He stepped forward and gripped her hands. “My dear …” He sent a hasty look over the shed.

Though the starlight from the open door hardly lightened the shadows, Quillan closed his eyes to slits lest they catch the light and betray him. Not that it mattered. In a moment Miss DiGratia would do so anyway.

“What are you doing out?”

“I lost my way on the mountain.”

“I told you to beware.”

“I only meant to take a short ride.”

“My dear, you’re trembling.” He cupped her elbow with his hand. “You must be terrified. There are bad things happening on the street. Bad men, as I warned you.”

She nodded.

“You were right to run.”

Quillan tensed. It would come now, her indignant retort that she had been grabbed and carried like so much grain. But it didn’t. Instead her voice was small. “Who are they? What are they doing?”

Beck shook his head. “It’s a travesty. The lawless terrifying the people. They’re telling the new marshal he’s as powerless to stop them as the last man.” He raised her chin with a finger. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll see you home at once.” He kept hold of her elbow with one hand and guided the small of her back with the other.

She stopped at the door. “Aren’t you afraid to go out?”

“More angry than afraid. It’s an outrage.” A slick answer.

Quillan released the tension from his muscles. Beck was a better actor than he’d thought. He would indeed see her safe. Doubtless she trusted him to do so, though she had never asked what he was doing out there himself.

F
OURTEEN

Is a violent deed more heinous than a violent thought? The thought and deed spring from the same spirit.

—Rose

C
ARINA’S KNEES SHOOK
as she climbed the stairs to her cell of a room and shut the door behind her. She leaned back against it and closed her eyes, the jelly in her knees spreading upward to her chest and shoulders until her teeth rattled.

Opening her eyes, she raised a hand and stared at the bruising on her wrist, touched her throat, felt again the fingers there, muting her cry with a stranglehold. Not strangled, no, he had allowed the air to pass. Though he might not have. She had been powerless against him.

The pirate. The outlaw. What terror he struck in her, jumping out from the darkness like a demon spawned. She could believe him an outlaw. His arms were steel entrapping her, his hard weight crushing her to the wall. Her body had fought of its own accord, desperate to break contact with a madman. But was he?

Did he not keep her from walking blindly into the thick of it? Mr. Beck had warned her to stay inside that night. Why had she ignored him? Going to the mine had so preoccupied her thoughts. She expelled her breath. She had not meant to be out past dark. Father Charboneau had sent her off in time. If Dom had not lost his way …

She brushed fingers over the damaged wrist. Quillan had protected her. The streets were bad enough any night. But this … to teach the new marshal he had no power? She passed a hand over her eyes, pressed the eyelids with her fingertips, then pinched the bridge of her nose. What man was pazzo enough to take the job?

An Irishman. Donald McCollough, Mr. Beck had named him. No doubt he was simply a man down on his luck enough to accept the impossible task. Had she not seen the brutality, cleaned the blood from one fool caught by the roughs? More mornings than not there was at least one body battered unconscious and stripped of gold. And others who had been less reluctant, therefore robbed but not beaten.

But nothing like tonight. Not in the open, dragging men into the street. Was there no safety? Quillan Shepard had kept her safe. A tremor shook her. How her heart had jumped! Could he not have spoken first? But that would have given him away. And would she have listened? Would she not more likely have run? What was he doing there in the shadows?

Her chest went cold. Robbery. Was he one of them?

Creeping along the wall, Quillan made his way from the shed back to the street. Three men lay there; one he knew would be the marshal. There were sounds of fighting in the alley behind the bank, shouts and fists, boots on ribs. He scanned Central. They would go on all night, but he’d missed what he needed to see.

Who had made the threat to the marshal? Who had warned him to turn a blind eye, then had him beaten senseless? He could only suspect, for Miss DiGratia had prevented his knowing. He frowned, still feeling the throb of teeth marks on his arm.

Quillan should have let her go, let her walk into it, should have let her see for herself what her foolishness wrought. He left the wall and ran across the street. He had lost his chance. Now the best he could do was make it to his tent without incident.

At least he hadn’t been seen. He considered Miss DiGratia’s silence. She hadn’t given him away. Maybe she had finally realized he was helping her. Or maybe the sight of Berkley Beck brought such pleasure and relief she forgot him altogether. He snorted. Most likely the latter.

He traversed the darkened tent camp, most of the occupants wisely inside their canvas walls, not willing to make themselves a target for this night’s activities. Stopping outside Cain’s tent, he hesitated, then knocked on the wooden doorpost.

“Who is it?” The voice was D.C.’s.

Quillan was relieved to hear him there. He’d instructed him to stay with Cain tonight, but he wasn’t sure the boy would follow that advice. “It’s Quillan.”

“Well, let him in, boy.” Cain’s voice, insistent and annoyed. The flap opened, and Quillan stooped to enter.

Cain waved him in with a cup of coffee. “What in tarnation are you doin’ out tonight?”

“Trying to get a look.”

“You’re crazier than a coon in a tail trap.”

Not if he could have gotten a clear look as he’d planned. Quillan sat down cross-legged, and the mottled mutt sidled in next to him. “Something has to be done, and it won’t come from our constabulary.”

“Bunch of cowards.” D.C. scowled, tossing a stale crust he dug out of his bedroll to the dog.

Cain turned to his son. “Can you hardly blame ’em? McCollough’s likely had his head busted in, and the others are next if they so much as show their faces. If they know what’s good for ’em, they’re headin’ for the hills right now, don’t ya know.”

Quillan clenched his fist. “That’s why it has to come from us.” “You mean vigilante action?”

Quillan traced his fingers down the dog’s neck where the crust had disappeared in one gulp. “It’s been done before.” He’d seen it. He knew how situations like this could escalate. He’d watched it in Laramie when his foster father worked the people into righteous anger against the sinful elements. Reverend Shepard had been crushed and confused when his words were made the excuse for violent repercussions that left three people dead.

Quillan shook his head. “But I’m not suggesting that. I hope it doesn’t come to it.”

“What, then?” Cain shifted his stump of leg on the cot and rubbed the thigh.

“If we can find who’s behind it, name the perpetrators and bring them to justice, we can have an end to it.”

“How do you intend to do that?”

Quillan raised an eyebrow. “I have a plan.”

Cain’s larynx jumped up and down his throat beneath the thin, slack skin. “You’ve got a plan.”

“I’m not sure yet about all the pieces. But I’m working on it.”

“What piece ain’t you sure of?”

Quillan tipped his head down, unwilling to be misconstrued in this next part. “Carina DiGratia.” He flicked his eyes up to see Cain’s reaction.

Cain ran his tongue along the inside of his lower lip and said nothing, but D.C. flushed red and looked about to splutter something, only anything he said would leave him with egg on his face. Cain didn’t know Miss DiGratia had doctored his son following one of his more shameful moments.

Quillan leaned forward. “You know whom I suspect.”

“And you know I agree with you.” Cain raised a knobby finger.

“If we can get someone inside, someone close to Beck, someone he trusts …”

“Carina DiGratia.” Cain’s nasal drawl made the foreign name sound almost comical.

“Think about it, Cain. She has access to his files, his ledger even. If we can learn whatever there is …” Quillan swung his arm.

“What happened to you?” D.C. pointed.

Quillan looked down to the spot D.C. indicated. Just below the roll of his sleeve, two semicircles of red gashes showed the work of Carina DiGratia’s teeth on his forearm. He stared a moment stupidly, as though he didn’t know perfectly well how they’d gotten there.

D.C. hunkered close. “Looks like someone bit you.”

Quillan looked from D.C. to Cain. “Someone did.”

Cain’s face suddenly sported red spheres on each cheekbone and on the bulb end of his nose. He drew his knee up to his chest and cackled. “Carina DiGratia.”

Quillan hung his head. “I hate it when you do that, Cain.”

Carina woke to a throbbing ache in her right wrist. She opened her eyes and examined the bruise. “How …?” Then it wasn’t a dream. Her mind had conjured strange images again and again through the night: Quillan howling from the crest of the mountain, then seizing her out of the darkness, his hands like steel claws, his head that of a wolf, but the eyes … the eyes were Quillan’s gray, fierce and searching as the talons seized her and they soared up higher and higher over the mountain that held his parents’ graves.

Absently she felt her throat. It hadn’t fared as poorly as her wrist. But she was thankful Mr. Beck had come when he did. She flushed at the memory of Quillan’s hold, the iron forearm across her ribs.

She had felt it before when he shot the snake and held her dangling. He seemed to enjoy trapping her between himself and some obstruction. Well, she had given as good as she got. Sitting up, she brushed her fingers through her hair and recalled the feel of her teeth in that same iron arm. It was flesh after all.

She climbed out of the cot, and her heel bumped the leather satchel underneath. She dropped to her knees and looked but didn’t open it. She knew the contents well enough. What had made her bring it? Some crazy hope that Flavio would regret his actions and come for her?

Sighing, she folded her hands. “Grazie, Dio, for this day and for protecting me last night.” She paused. “Thank you for … for Quillan and Mr. Beck. And per piacere give me my house today.”

She dressed and washed, then, taking up the letter she’d penned the day before, she went downstairs to the smell of pork and flapjacks.

Cain pushed open the swinging door with the head of his crutch. A complete abstainer, he nonetheless went inside the Emporium and made his way to the polished bar at the back. The place stank, but he’d smelled worse.

William Evans set up a cup and filled it with coffee, then gave him a haggard grin. “Mornin’, Cain.”

They had too many years of gold fields to let their differences on drink come between them. William Evans was a good man, even if he peddled the devil’s water now instead of scratching dirt. Cain looked around the room, most all the chairs in place, the sawdust undisturbed. “Seems you had a slow night.”

Evans puffed his cheeks and blew the air out. “I expected it. The poor fools who didn’t found themselves facedown in the street.”

“And the new marshal?”

Evans shook his head, then scowled. “No better than the last. They’ll have him right where they want him.”

Cain sighed and sipped his coffee. “Poor fella. Keep electing honest men, and the roughs’ll have their way every time. Need a regular thug to do the job.”

“Anyone in mind?”

“I was sorta thinkin’ you, Will.” Cain raised his cup in toast.

Evans laughed. “I’d like to have a piece of them. But I got a family to think of now. It’s not just me anymore.”

Cain nodded, feeling gloomier than ever. “That’s why you settled for business over pleasure.”

“I’d hardly call crushing stone and shoveling dirt pleasure, though I admit it had its excitement when I was younger. No, Cain, I’d be no better than McCollough. Once a man has something to fear for—or rather someone—he’s helpless.”

Shouldn’t be that way, Lord. Lettin’ fear keep a man from doin’ what’s right
. But who was he to judge? “You seen my boy lately?”

“Now, Cain. I can’t play nursemaid to every runt that comes in here lookin’ for fun.” Evans leaned hammy elbows on the counter.

“I just thought you might’a noticed he’s freightin’ with Quillan these days.”

“That so? What about the Boundless?”

“Morty and Slow Jim run out on her. Claim she’s dry. Cain’t hardly expect better from Daniel Cain. Quillan’s my full partner now.” Cain slurped the coffee.